Hinge hanger

ABSTRACT

A hanger for hanging a variety of household or office articles designed to be secured to the upper hinge of any hinge-supported door. A device is preferably metal rod formed with a horizontal portion designed to act as a support for either hangers or objects of any type. The device includes a support portion secured to the horizontal portion which terminates in a vertical extending pin portion. The pin portion has approximately the same dimensions as a conventional hinge pin. In one embodiment, the pin portion is substituted for the hinge pin in the door. In another embodiment, a bracket is designed to engage the top and bottom of the hinge pin and the pin portion of the hanger engages the bracket. In both embodiments, the hanger swings freely independent of the door and automatically folds behind the door when it is opened.

United States Patent Morrison et a1.

HINGE HANGER [76] Inventors: Robert A. Morrison, La Canada, Calif.; John E. Wagner, 1041 E.

Green St., Suite 202, Glendale, .Q it91 [22] Filed: Nov. 17, 1971 [21] Appl. No.: 199,553

[52] US. Cl 211/96, 16/139, 248/289 [51] Int. Cl. A471 5/08 [58] Field of Search...... 248/289, 290, 479; 16/137; 211/86, 96

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 213,904 4/1879 Jarvis 248/289 X 1,170,919 2/1916 McCallum 248/290 1,197,544 9/1916 Rediske 211/13 1,208,986 12/1916 K rodel 248/289 X 2,128,596 8/1938 Redin 16/137 X 2,595,521 5/1952 Hanson 16/137 UX 2,684,225 7/1954 Johnson.... 16/137 UX 2,696,965 12/1954 Maxwellm. 248/316 X 2,927,761 3/1960 Martiello 16/137 UX 3,044,630 7/1962 .Szabo 248/290 X swings [111 3,825,127 [4 1 July 23, 1974 3,200,435 8/1965 Hemmeter et a1. 16/137 Primary Examiner-William H. Schultz [5 7 ABSTRACT A hanger for hanging a variety of household or'office articles designed to be secured to the upper hinge of any hinge-supported door.

' hinge pin in the door. In another embodiment, a

bracket is designed to engage the top and bottom of the hinge pin and the pin portion of the hanger engages the bracket. in both embodiments, the hanger freely independent of the door and automatically folds behind the door when it is opened.

' 4 Claims, 9 Drawing Figures HINGE HANGER For many years the household or office door has been a support for hangers or hooks for supporting articles of clothing. One type of support is the simple hook which is attached to the door by screws or, in certain cases, by adhesives. Another common type of support is an over-the-door hanger which includes a C-shape metal bracket designed to slip over the top of the door and support a bracket mechanism. In some cases, the bracket is fixed and in others it is adjusted upward and downward to fold it out of the way when the door is open and to move it back into horizontal operating position when the door is closed.

In the case of permanently installed hooks, they have a limited capacity and involve a permanent type attachment to the door usually with resulting marring of the door surface. The over-the-top-of-the-door hangers characteristically interfere with the opening and closing of the door and often result in damage to the door frame. Over-the-top-of-the-door hangers also must carry felt or other protective material to avoid damage to the surface of the door. The variety of door thicknesses requires that this type of hanger be adjustable one way or another.

Neither of these type of hangers are satisfactory for general use and both involve some damage to the door or frame.

BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE INVENTION We have invented an improved hanger for use in connection with doors. This improved bracket does not engage the surface or top of the door but instead engages the top door hinge of nearly all household or office doors. Engagement'being with the hinge, the hanger can be as long as the width of the door and thereby givinga large capacity for storage. The bracket positioned in the region of the hinge is automatically moved aside whenever the door is opened, and'when the door is fully opened back against the adjacent wall, the hanger is virtually concealed.

The hanger of this invention is supported by one of two ways: 1 by substitution of the vertical pin portion of the hanger for the conventional hinge pin, or (2) by a bracket which engages the top and bottom of the hinge assembly.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The foregoing invention may be more clearly understood from the following detailed description and by reference to the drawings in which:

FIG. 1-. is an elevational view of a conventional door and frame with a hinge hanger of this invention in place;

FIG. 2 is a front elevation view of the hinge hanger of FIG. 1 showing clips instead of a clothes hanger as the supporting device;

FIG. 2A is a fragmentary view of an alternate embodiment end of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary view of this invention in its simplest form;

FIG. 3A is aside view of another embodiment of this invention;

FIG. 4 is an exploded view of the hinge and hinge pin with a fragmentary view of the hinge hanger of FIGS. 1 and 2 ready to be substituted for the hinge pin;

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary side viewof an alternate embodiment of this invention employing a hinge mounting bracket;

FIG. 6 is a front view of the bracket of FIG. 5; and

FIG. 7 is a front view of an alternate wire embodiment of the bracket of FIGS. 5 and 6.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION FIG. 1 illustrates this invention in its mounted position on the upper hinge 10 of a door 11 which is mounted on a frame 12 and shown in a partially open position. A hanger l3 of this invention is basically a closed loop triangular rod including, for example, a straight portion 14 which is mounted horizontally joining an angular support portion 15 and a vertical closure portion 16. The one remaining portion of the hanger which is not visible in FIG. 1 because it is positioned in place of the normal hinge pin of the door 11 is the pin portion 20 seen in FIG. 2.

Mounted in the mariner shown in FIG. 1, the hanger 13 is free to pivot about the same axis as the door 11 and actually lay flat against the door or adjacent wall when stored or actually when in use. The hanger 13 can support any of a number of objects which can be hooked to either the horizontal portion 14 or support portion 15 as the need dictates. The curved junction between the portions 14 and 15 may optionally be formed into a hook, if desired, as illustrated in FIG. 2A,

although the horizontal portion 14 is normally considered the working support member. FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional coat hanger as supported from the hanger.

In FIG. 2, the pair of spring clips 17 and 18 are shown engaging the horizontal portion 14 to support a pad of paper or chart or other similar objects.

As illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, the hanger is a unitary member made from a rod such as a one-fourth inch mild steel and therefore exhibits great strength. Hangers mounted as shown in FIG. 1 and made of such onefourth inch rod and having an overall length of section 14 of approximately 18 inches can easily support lbs. of loading. Of course, most household applications do not require such strength, but it illustrates that the use of the existing hinge secured to the frame by three or more wood screws or bolts offers a sound solid sup port for the hanger as compared with lightweight stamped metal brackets customarily associated with door and wall hangers. It is apparent from the foregoing that the shape of the portions 14, 15 and 16 are not critical but that the portion 20 must approximate in diameter and length the hingepin which is removed from the door hinge. In fact, FIG. 3 illustrates the simplest form of this invention, an L-shaped rod including a pin portion 30 having dimensions suitable for substitution for a conventional hinge pin and a support portion 31. This embodiment includes a protective end cap 32 to avoid injury should anyone encounter the end of the hanger. The pin portion may be re -entrant or double parallel form as shown in FIG. 3A constituting the hanger of FIG. 2 with portions 1'4, 16, 20 and omitting section 15 except where it joins sections 16 and 20. These simple forms of FIGS. 3 and 3A are particularly suitable forsupporting light loads such as charts, photographs or posters.

Now referring to FIG. 4 where the size relationship of the pin portion 20 and the hinge pin of a typical hinge is more apparent. As in most cases, the conventional hinge is made up of two hinge plates 21 and 22 with interleaved tubular pin retainers 23 and a removal hinge pin 24. Usually there is a ball or ornamental closure 25 secured to the bottom retainer 23 corresponding in shape to the ball or head ornament 26 of the hinge pin 24. The pin 20 of this hanger has a length suf ficient to engage each of the five sections 23 of the hinge and with approximately the same degree of freedom of movement as the pin 24. We have found that there is a general uniformity in hinge pins for normal doors with the hinge pin approximating 0.25 inch in diameter and from 3 to 3% inches in length. In certain hinges, the pin 24 is of 0.240 inch in diameter. In these cases, we have found that the same hinge hanger 13 can be made to work in all hinges where the diameter of the rod making up the hanger 13 is slightly less than this minimum size hinge pin, for example, 0.225 inch, and the pin portion 20 includes a thin wall removable plastic tube 33 having an outside diameter in order of 0.235 inch and an inside diameter in the order of 0.230 inch. Such a tube 33 is illustrated in FIG. 4. We have found that materials such as the polyamid resin known as Nylon produced by the BI. DuPont de Nemours Company of Wilmington, Delaware, or tetraflourethylene known under trademark Teflon of the El DuPont de Nemours Company of Wilmington, Delaware, or simply polyethylene or polypropylene tubing are successful in providing this variable diameter feature for the pin. The Teflon and Nylon tubes additionally exhibit the excellent low friction properties for which they are well known and the use of a hinge hanger on a door can actually reduce door friction and improve its operation.

In certain applications, particularly where a temporary hanger is desired and the user does not want to remove a hinge pin, we have devised hanger brackets for use in conjunction with the hinge hanger which can be snapped over the existing hinge without removal of the pin. Two embodiments of the support bracket are illustrated in FIGS. 6 and 7 and the embodiment of FIG. 6 is illustrated in use in FIG. 5.

Referring now to FIG. 6, in conjunction with FIG. the bracket is an elongated metal or plastic bracket 40 including four openings, two of them 41 and 42 located adjacent to the ends, and two openings 43 and 44 intermediate but close to the adjacent openings 41 and 42. The openings 41 and 42 are dimensioned to extend over the head 26 of the hinge pin and over the lower head 26 and hold the bracket 40 outward from the hinge. The two openings 43 and 44 are therefore aligned vertically when the openings 41 and 42 engage the hinge and the openings 43 and 44 constitute support openings for the pin portion of the hinge hanger 13. The bracket 40 of FIGS. 5 and 6 includes four bends which are identified in FIG. 4 as dashed lines and are clearly visible in the side view of FIG. 6. We have found that for light loads a polyethylene strip 1 inch wide and Va inch thick will serve for bracket 40, and for normal loads the same dimensioned material from sheet steel is eminently effective. The bracket also may be formed of wire as illustrated in FIG. 7. In this case, the wire forms the openings 51, 52, 53 and 54 corresponding to the similar numbers 41 through 44 of FIG. 6 and also supplies the connection therebetween. The wire form of bracket of FIG. 7 is desirable for use where there is minimum clearance around the hinge and door.

In the embodiments of FIGS. 1, 2, 3A and 4, it should be noted that there is a portion of the hanger which extends in close proximity in parallel to the pin portion 20. In the embodiments of FIGS. 1, 2 and 4, this portion 16 is placed from the pin portion 20 approximately 3/16 inch, a distance which is slightly greater than the thickness of the usual tubular pin retainers 23. Therefore, slight clearance between the tubular pin retainers and the portion 16 is normally encountered thereby allowing free pivotal movement of both the hanger and the door. However, subject to heavy loading, the hinge hanger can perform slightly bringin the bottom of portion 16 into contact with the tubular pin retainers 23 thereby transferring the load from the hanger to the frame of the door as well known hinges with their recessed mounting in the door frame are capable of supporting substantial loads. Therefore, this hinge hanger can support greater loads than door hangers in the past. The hanger also automatically folds out of the way each time the door is opened.

In each of the foregoing paragraphs the device of this invention is described as a hanger and associated with the top hinge. It must be recognized that this invention may be used as a utility bracket associated with the lower hinge and used, for example, as a shoe shine foot rest.

The foregoing description is merely illustrative of the principles of this invention and shall not be considered as limiting. Instead, the patent monopoly granted for this invention shall not be limited to the specific embodiment shown but rather to the invention as defined below in the following claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A hanger for mounting on hinged doors having hinges with an exposed hinge pin and tubular pin retainer portions comprising:

a unitary rod member including an elongated portion for supporting loads;

a pin portion extending normal to said elongated load supporting portion;

said pin portion being adapted to replace the hinge pin of such hinges m the tubular pin retainer portion of such hinge and an intermediate portion connecting said pin portion to said elongated load supporting portion;

said intermediate portion extendin enerally parallel to said pin portion and space t erefrom a distance to embrace the tubular pin retainer portion of a door hinge;

said intermediate portion being deformable responsive to load on said elongated supporting portion to rest against and gain support from the tubular pin retainer portion of such hinge.

2. The combination in accordance with claim 1 wherein said pin portion and said intermediate portion are connected by a bight portion adopted to engage the uppermost hinge pin retainer to limit the extension of the said pin portion into the pin retainer portions of such hinge.

3. The combination in accordance with claim 1 including an additional portion rigidly joining the generally outermost end of said elongated load supporting portion with said intermediate portion to define closed continuous load sup rting structure.

4. The combination in accordance with claim 2 wherein each of said portions are straight and define a substantially rigid triangular load bearing structure. 

1. A hanger for mounting on hinged doors having hinges with an exposed hinge pin and tubular pin retainer portions comprising: a unitary rod member including an elongated portion for supporting loads; a pin portion extending normal to said elongated load supporting portion; said pin portion being adapted to replace the hinge pin of such hinges in the tubular pin retainer portion of such hinge and an intermediate portion connecting said pin portion to said elongated load supporting portion; said intermediate portion extending generally parallel to said pin portion and spaced therefrom a distance to embrace the tubular pin retainer portion of a door hinge; said intermediate portion being deformable responsive to load on said elongated supporting portion to rest against and gain support from the tubular pin retainer portion of such hinge.
 2. The combination in accordance with claim 1 wherein said pin portion and said intermediate portion are connected by a bight portion adopted to engage the uppermost hinge pin retainer to limit the extension of the said pin portion into the pin retainer portions of such hinge.
 3. The combination in accordance with claim 1 including an additional portion rigidly joining the generally outermost end of said elongated load supporting portion with said intermediate portion to define closed continuous load supporting structure.
 4. The combination in accordance with claim 2 wherein each of said portions are straight and define a substantially rigid triangular load bearing structure. 